Trip to wudang mountain.

[sddarkman619]

I am trying to book my trip to wudang mountain by myself without the help of a travel agency. I am not sure if I should, maybe using a travel agency would be the best thing, but I don't want to use osme pre-packaged trip to china, because I want to do what I want to do, not what some predescibed trip says.

here is what I want to do. I want to go to wudan mountain. I want to stay in the Xuanwu Hotel on Mt. Wudang. then from there I want to trek to the top of mt wudang to golden top, is that the same as Golden Palace?

so I have made some notes and they are:

Fly to Beijing and take the train from Beijing to Xiangfan and then transfer to Wudang. then I can get a cab or somethign to the hotel, right? then what? is there other places to stay on wudan? if not, what do I do about getting to the top? is that a one day trip? up and back?

I understand that the trek up wudan is a staircase of stone stairs, is that correct?

I study kung fu and would like to visit this place, I am 40 now and don't want to wait too much longer.

any help would be great. thanks.

[Ian_Lee]

I went up to Wudan in early '80s. My knowledge may be outdated.

Since Wudan is not a hot tourist spot, I heard that they still haven't installed cable car. The trek is all stone stairs and the grade is not that steep. Even you are in your '40s, there should be no problem for you to handle it.

On the Golden Top, there is the Golden Palace which is a sacred Taoist monument. If you want to finish it in a day trip (up and down), it seems kind of a rush. I spent a night up in the Golden Top where there was rudimentary dorms (no bath and limited water supply). And at Golden Top, it is kind of frigid in the summer night. The temperature can drop to low 50 degrees F.

And weather changes suddently up the mountain. Before we started trekking, the weather was very sunny. But half way up the mountain, it was raining dogs and cats without shelter. So remember to bring a pair of good sneakers and raincoat.

But if you want to pay tribute to Wudan martial arts in Wudan Mountain, you may be disappointed. I am not sure if they have installed martial art training class at Wudan's Taoist monastery as they had in Shaolin Temple in Henan.

[skylee]

I know that the top of Emei is called 金頂. But is the top of Wudang also called 金頂? Are all mountain tops called 金頂?

[Ian_Lee]

Like Emei, some devout Taoist believers also had the illusion of seeing the Golden light arc down in the mountain valley when they peeked at Golden Top in Wudan.

Probably that may be one of the reasons why Zhang Ziyi jumped down from Wudan at the end of CTHD.